The present invention generally relates to methods and systems for providing a customized user interface. More particularly, the present invention relates to providing a customized user interface for viewing and editing properties on a document.
Meta-data is data that is used to describe other data. The term may refer to detailed compilations such as data dictionaries and repositories that provide a substantial amount of information about each data element. It may also refer to any descriptive item about data, such as the content of an HTML meta tag, a title field in a media file, or even attributes associated with an electronic spreadsheet or word-processing file. A problem exists in that users within enterprises may not take the time to provide meta-data. For example, they may see no value in providing meta-data.
On the other hand, enterprises tend to want meta-data to describe, for example, data content, as their servers and other data repositories fill with valuable documents and other files. Consequently, an enterprise may have too many documents to search through to find desired data. Knowledge workers providing meta-data may help the enterprise analyze the documents or other files, but the meta-data must be accurate. Thus, the conventional strategy is to allow knowledge workers to provide meta-data. This often causes problems because the knowledge workers may be un-willing to provide quality meta-data. For example, the knowledge workers may select the first choice in a list, “misc”, or type in a few random letters (“fd”) to make a form asking for the meta-data go away. From the knowledge workers' perspective, they may perceive that it may take too much time for little or no perceivable gain.
Furthermore, many users wish to update the meta-data off-line. For example, a document may be downloaded from a server to a client system. However, conventional systems may store schema associated with the meta-data only on the server. Accordingly, with conventional systems, the meta-data cannot be displayed off-line because the schema may reside only on the server and not on the client.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need for methods and systems for providing meta-data more optimally. Furthermore, there is a need for providing a customized user interface for viewing and editing properties on a document. In addition, there is a need for creating document schema usable, for example, when a document is used off-line and updateable when the document has been uploaded after being used off-line.